Hunting's on a dangerous track, the same one most of society happens to be riding. It's the track that reduces everything from church to business to family to its smallest denomination, to fragments, snippets and sound bites, because we don't have time for the whole package, just pieces, convenience-sized morsels that we can swallow as we hurry on to the next thing.

This isn't exactly news; we've been headed this way since the first fast-food chains opened their drive-through lines; since CNN and USA Today started condensing complex news into headlines, rather than information. Today, the take-out fulfillment mentality has become rampant. Heck, just check out some of the best-selling hunting videos (I didn't say best, just best-selling). Their producers don't bother with the hunt, instead just flashing kill shot after kill shot.

I receive flashes of this new world order all the time, and sometimes it resonates, the way it did recently when a friend's grown son (late 20s) told me he wanted to start bowhunting.

Normally, such a vow would be considered a good thing; it is, after all, a positive when any new person wants to join our ranks. But I had to wince, because I know where this kid is coming from. To him, hunting is the video game he doesn't yet own, the next toy he doesn't have in his garage (and believe me, he's got lots of access and lots of toys). Knowing this young man like I do, I really got the impression that it might not be the hunt he was after, but the sport of it, the shooting at live targets, which to him would be one step up from the latest, greatest Nintendo offering.

I know this because I know the kid. He has never hunted and he knows nothing at all about wildlife. He couldn't tell you what a female deer is called, let alone judge one end from the other. To him, hunting is nothing more than playing paintball with arrows against opponents who cannot shoot back.

Bowhunting is definitely not a pursuit that brings the immediate gratification most modern humans seek, unless, of course, you consider just being outside gratification enough. Bowhunting requires more time, more quiet observation and much more patience than other kinds of hunting. It requires more skill, both in the handling of the bow and arrow and in woodsmanship in general. The hunting archer must learn to walk quietly, sit quietly and move on game animals that are only yards away, and to do all this requires a greater understanding of the animals and their ways.

Too many hunters today are about the numbers, rather than the experience: "How many?" "How big?" and the newest question, "How long?" because they want to hunt, as long as it doesn't take too long or become too restrictive. These are bad trends for the hunting industry in general. I'm happy that bowhunting doesn't fit well into this mold. To hunt with the bow and arrow is to say, "I want to be outside and take what nature gives me." As Charles Fergus once wrote, "Hunting is a path, a muddy, brushy, dank, and spoor-written path along which the seeker, if his spirit be right, can truly feel the earth."

That said, the more I thought about the young man's declaration, the more I realized I had an opportunity, if not an obligation, to help him out with his bowhunting wish. Will he flinch when he sees the work, patience and acceptance (that you might not get a shot today, or tomorrow) involved? One never knows. Perhaps bowhunting will be the door he walks through to "truly feel the earth". Perhaps he's looking to tear off a bigger bite.

After all, someone once taught me.